Funding for research, and forming groups

edited March 2017 in Community
we all seem to be short on funds, and I understand that doing things cheap is part of the ideology but if we want to make real progress I think real, expensive, R&D and to that you need funds I haven't seen anyone try to apply for grants, start a Kickstarter, or anything else similar to that so my question is why not and if you all would be interested in  forming either a non-profit, company, or 
  


  
  
  
  
  
  


 these are all groups that grants.gov awards grants to I have been looking for individual grants for about a month now and there are none for things useful to the world of biohacking. But for groups it's another story heck becoming a group is good for plenty of other reasons too

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  • I have some experience in nonprofits. Maybe there are education grants that could be twisted to fit into biohacking? A nonprofit could also be a good vehicle to get donations from more wealthy transhumanists for research purposes?
  • @Skankt had a 501(c)(3) with transhumanism at its core. No grants were applied for and it went under. Running a 501(c)(3) does entail a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo, as he will tell you but there's potential. Talk to him if you want to get started. He incorporated in Minnesota.
  • I... will... join this group's discussion and contribute in ways I can, but won't go so far as to put my name on anything that the government can see. Like a registered organization.

    That said, I think a better, more immediate solution, though it is one that requires a certain level of trust, is a thread for approved people (the trustworthy ones) to post requests for physical things needed for projects they're working on. And then people could sort of donate to specific projects. Sort of like a micro Kickstarter, or other crowd-source website. And potentially other people not on the "trusted" list could sort of petition their project to the "trusted" people, and one or more of the trusted people could sort of "claim" that other person's project. Sponsoring it on the projects list. Of course, there needs to be a way to get on this "trusted" list. Some set of requirements like time on the forum, activity, proof of other project work, sort of to show commitment since these "donations" couldn't easily be taken back. I also think it'd be best if any sponsored projects didn't directly receive donation funds, rather the donation funds were received by the sponsor, who then purchased materials on behalf of the project creator.

    For organizational reasons, I'd do it with a thread where the original post is a list of Trusted People, their projects, and links to the respective forum threads. And a similar list for sponsored projects. That works best of course if the post can be edited by any of the trusted members. Don't know if Vanilla allows multi-user editing on a forum post without just making everyone a moderator. So, maybe a Wiki page would be better.

    I think I explained all that well, if it needs clarifying, let me know.
  • Just a general question, if funding were obtained through the government, wouldn't that restrict research opportunities and increase FDA regulation?  Genuinely not sure what the qualifications attached to the grants would be.

    @Jupiter That's a really neat idea, and could definitely benefit a number of projects.
  • @misslitty no not really to research things it doesn't have to be FDA approved that is for selling to the general populace 

  • I wouldn't take government funding. Unless I could do it somehow completely anonymously.
  • I have been kicking around idea of a crowdfunding platform for private research. Not even sure that it is really feasible for "official" research since it would likely lack backing from the institutions that normally fund these endeavors. But it could be an opportunity to generate interest in other peoples ideas and maybe bear some fruit.
  • Any grant would have all kinds of oversight. No one is just going to give you money and then let you do research. If you are going to be doing research on people then there are even more hoops to leap through. You almost certainly wouldn't be able to use yourself as a subject. Grants are very, very specific.
  • @ Cathasach no not all the NIH grants plenty of grant for general research for starting up business usually it's when you are researching for a college that the hoops come up and those are most of the time caused by the college itself

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